Sex & Romance
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Husband doesn't want to have sex! UGH
Sooo it's been about two months since we've had sex...I don't understand why he never wants to. He says it's because he's tired but I'm beginning to think its something else. Is it weird that I have a crazy sex drive and his is blaaaah never?! It's frustrating!
Re: Husband doesn't want to have sex! UGH
2 months is a long time! I have that issues at time where I want it more and we are just on different schedules. I like it right before bed and he wants it right when I come home when I just want to relax at that time. On the weekends or vacations its all the time. But with my husband I have learned that on work nights he is just focused on work so its not as much.
If I put on some lingerie and light some candles and he can tell I really am in the mood, i can usually get him in the mood. You should try that and if is still not addressing your needs, you really need to sit down and talk to him about it. There has to be a reason...good luck!
I strongly suggest a complete medical checkup for him -- and he needs to be frank and point blank with his doc. Screw pride, as it were.
There are many conditions that can whack out a sex drive: thyroid problems and a low testosterone level are two of them.
Were you a Sex and the City fan? Do you remember when Charlotte married Trey?
I think there may be more going on with this situation than it seems.
this really frightens me. a man going two whole months without sex is unheard of. especially if the woman is the one asking for it. it seems like there is something going on. a medical condition could be the case but i think it's not that simple. if he feels insecure it still wouldn't stop him for two months solid. saying he will try to consider once a week blows my mind. i think i would start investigating to see if there is some infedilty going on. this seems really suspicious to me but then again i don't know him. it might just his persona.
What was your sex life like before you got married?
And even if he is a bit hefty or has just gained a few pounds, sheesh --- I am sure you will love him no matter what size he is.
He told you he'd work on it...and then he pretty much didn't follow through. Not good.
If the full physical turns up nothing and he continues with the "honey I'm tired" bit after promising you he'd work on it, ask yourself if you can live with being in a sexless marriage. If the answer is no, give thought to having this marriage annulled. GL.
ETA: it very well could be he has decided the sex department is permanently closed -- or perhaps he is having an affair.
It's up to you to find out what the story is. (and if it turns out that his sex drive was just as nonexistant before marriage as it is now, you should have asked yourself -- during the early dating stage -- if a boyfriend who has a nonexistant sex drive is what you wanted. And if the answer was no, you should have ended the relationship right there)
LOLZ @ teh newb.
Thanks, I've been worried about it as well. We used to have sex quite frequently when we first started dating; however, after graduating college and moving to a new city for his job we were having sex maybe once every couple of months. This didn't last that long probably an adjustment period from college to being employed full time. It's not like it ever went back to the we just started dating phase, maybe once every couple of weeks, which at the time was fine since I'm a crime scene investigator and had to constantly be on call (one time I worked 32 hours straight). He is an engineer who works well over 40 hours a week. Now, my hours have shifted to 4-10 hr days so I have a lot of free time. I think he is stressed about work since his company is primarily contract based. Also, he turned 30 in December and I think he's having issues with it. (I'm 25).
A couple of weeks ago he was trying to hide his work phone from me and I got really upset about it. He said he was just messing with me. This was BEFORE I found a letter he had written to his high school girlfriends apologizing about his drinking with her forever ago. He said he never sent the letter, but it was really upsetting that he even wrote it to begin with and the fact that he said something to the effect of "as I have realized if love is pure it comes back." wtf is that?! He won't even talk about it with me because it's "embarrasing." I understand if you were really apologizing to the people you've wronged and you're actually going to work on the alcohol problem (which started again after we were married- he never drank when we first met...apparently only before he met me). However, he's done some messed up stuff and never wrote an intimate apology note to me about what happened.
I know that I cannot live with a sexless marriage, and I think that I'm a forgiving person. He CONSTANTLY is now asking how much I love him and crap like that..I don't get it. I have brought up marriage counseling but of course he's not too keen on that idea. I guess I'll just have to go by myself.
I appreciate the feedback at least I'm not the only one that thinks something is wrong with him not wanting to get it on haha.
ya, cause that is such a nice question to ask a gal who is pouring her heart out to us? Get a clue and some tact.......
It could just be life maybe getting away will help or introducing something new into the bedroom that has not been done before. Go with your intuition though as others have said. It will not lead you wrong....
alicia,
you mention that your husband has struggled with alcohol. a lot of what you are describing is pretty typical of the nature of someone with the disease of addiction.
it has nothing to do with if he's drinking now, it has to do with a spiritual disease. drinking is only a symptom. other symptoms of this spiritual disease are, compulsive overeating, workaholism, abuse of prescription and non prescription drugs, sex and love addiction, intriguing with others outside your intimate relationships, and sexual anorexia.
to oversimplify, people with this spiritual hole often alternate between trying to shove things into that hole - drugs, alcohol, work, people, etc - and depriving themselves. a bout of drinking will be followed by a period of abstinence. a sexual period will be followed by deprivation, etc.
your husband hopefully isn't cheating on you. (although if this continues, it could be where it ultimately leads. that still will be a symptom though, not the problem itself.) what he is doing, is avoiding intimacy with you. his reasons for doing that stem from his discomfort with himself. when you were his girlfriend, he could lose himself in having sex with you, much like a drug or alcohol. now that you are his wife, sex is more intimate. and intimacy, for an addict, is terrifying. intimacy with you is very similar to intimacy with self - the last thing an addict is usually able to do - hence why they self-medicate and self-starve. it's all avoidance of self/the pain within. his reaching out to an old girlfriend and creating secrets is a way of intriguing outside your relationship/creating secrets/and distance which is also symptomatic of what i am describing.
does this make sense? there is a great book about sexual anorexia by patrick carnes, and it sounds to me like, if he was willing to look into it, a twelve step program would be a great way for him to get in touch with himself, and dealing with his self (and you) avoidance. he could go to AA, sex and love addicts anonymous, or if someone in his family drank or he was the victim of someone else's addiction/abandonment thru work, divorce or whatever, alanon may be very helpful as well.
i hope this information helps you!
xx
This might be me listening to a lot of the Savage Love Podcast lately, but honestly, when you enter into a marriage you are essentially signing a contract that says that you will be with each other to support one another mentally, financially, spiritually, and PHYSICALLY. We all have days when we don't want to go to work, but we go. We all have days we don't want to work out, but we do. And sometimes we don't want to have sex, but we do because we want to please our partner, and pleasing our partner makes us feel better and can be a turn on!
The less you have sex, the less you want to and the easier it is not to, as it is with exercise, dieting, etc. However, when you got married, you made a promise to each other that you would support each other's needs. Right now, he isn't supporting your need. Not only that- he's lying about it. Not necessarily by fabricating something, but by evading the truth and by omitting and not explaining things, like this letter to an ex. If I were you, I would have a very honest discussion where you explain that you love him and want him otherwise you wouldn't have married him, but that it is unfair to you for him to withhold sex. If he has issues he needs to get over, fine, but if he's not taking the steps to correct them, (not getting over his past, not working out to get over the chubby thing, etc.) then he has essentially violated the contract of marriage. You need to think if there's a compromise you can make, (IE breaking out of monogamy. I know this isn't necessarily what you envisioned when you got married, but if it saves your marriage....). If he is unwilling to change, unwilling to fit your needs AND unwilling for you to get your needs met elsewhere, you should get out.
Kristie,
Everything that you have said really does make sense. I do believe that he has an addiction problem, but whenever I say something about it he refuses to do AA or anything. He says that he can stop by himself, which he has done and he's been refraining from alcohol for about a month. That being said, it seems that every fall he goes back to drinking (this year it was about aug thru feb and last year it was about sept thru jan). I believe that this is because that's about the time that his work contracts are slowing down. He is definitely a workaholic. Hopefully he finds a hobby sometime soon to occupy his time. I do believe what you said about when I was the gf he could lose himself like a drug because in this letter he wrote to an ex it said she was his drug. Do you have any suggestions on how I could support him to get over his addiction problems if he is unwilling to seek a 12 step program?
Thanks!
dear alicia,
unfortunately, if he doesn't think he has a problem, all you can really do is support yourself. as someone who is affected by someone else's "ism", you qualify for alanon. it can be so helpful to have the support of other people who are going through the same thing, and oftentimes when people stop the tug of war with their addict and focus on their own health and happiness, the other person wakes up and realizes they have some changing to do.
educating yourself about the nature of this disease will also be helpful, if you two have good communication, because over time you may be able to help him understand that drinking is not his problem, so its irrelevant how often he does it or if he can stop - the problem is WHY he wants to drink/have an escape. what pain is he hiding from, what deep sense of unworthiness or unlovablity is driving him to self medicate with alchohol. these are the things that are uncovered in twelve step programs (and therapists who believe in them/are influenced by them - that's an option too), but they are answers an addict has to seek for themselves.
in the meantime i'd read up on sexual anorexia, you can google it, since he is displaying those symptoms and gain comfort from the fact that you are not alone. focus on yourself, and he may start to freak out that you aren't obsessing over him anymore. then you'll have a lot more power than you do now, tugging on his sleeves to notice you.
my heart goes out to you - i was in a relationship, before i met my husband, with someone who had a lot of trouble in this department. it was one of the most painful things i have ever endured.
much love.
xx
Your follow up post about the phone & letter made me think: cheating.
My ex and I used to have a pretty active sex life and it went to about 2-3x a week when we lived together. Then, we got married and 4-5 months into marriage, he never wanted to have sex and I was begging for it and trying to put the moves on.......sure enough. Cheating. Needless to say, I got out & divorced him. F*ck that, no cheaters for me.